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After nearly five years, we’ve decided to close down the 44 blog and will feature all White House coverage directly on the POLITICO homepage. Thank you for your readership, and we look forward to seeing you in 2014.

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President Barack Obama plans to sign up for health insurance through an Affordable Care Act exchange before the end of the day Monday, senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said.

Jarrett made the announcement in an interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, apparently ahead of the White House's planned rollout. Officials did not respond to repeated requests for confirmation.

The White House first said in 2010 that the president, who has coverage through the federal government and gets his care from White House doctors, would sign up for insurance through an exchange.

Monday is the last day to sign up for coverage that begins on Jan. 1, though the state and federal exchanges remain open through March.

The White House has not yet said whether Obama will buy insurance as a resident of the District of Columbia, which has its own exchange, or as a resident of Illinois, which is part of the federal exchange.

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President Barack Obama urged Congress Friday not to enact new sanctions on Iran in the near future and he suggested lawmakers advancing such measures are making political hay of the issue.

"I've said to members of Congress: Democrats and Republicans...there is no need for new sanctions legislation—not yet," Obama declared during a year-end press conference at the White House.

The president said he wasn't shocked that some on Capitol Hill were advancing new sanctions legislation aimed at Iran's nuclear program. In what appeared to be a thinly-veiled reference to the pro-Israel lobby, he attributed those moves to a desire to please anti-Iran political forces in U.S.

"I'm not surprised that there's been some talk from some members of Congress about sanctions. I think the politics of trying to look tough on Iran are often good when you're running for office—or if you're in office," Obama said.

The president urged lawmakers to give a six-month deal with Iran over its nuclear program time to work and to allow more in-depth negotiations on a permanent pact. If Iran suddenly tries to accelerate its nuclear capabilities, "it's not going to be hard for us to turn the dials back or strengthen sanctions even further," Obama said. "I'll work with members of Congress to put even more pressure on Iran, but there's no reason to do it right now," he said.

"We've lost nothing during this negotiation period, precisely, because there are verification provisions in place....We'll know if they're violating the terms of the agreement," Obama said. "Let's test them. Now's the time to see if we can get this thing done."

Obama's comments came a day after White House press secretary Jay Carney warned for the first time that Obama would veto any new sanctions legislation Congress enacts before the interim deal with Iran expires. The president did not personally reiterate the veto threat Friday.

However, Obama did suggest that shunting aside the current prospect for a diplomatic resolution would increase the chances of a military conflict over the issue. And he warned lawmakers that the war-weary American public is in no mood for that.

"It is my goal to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. But I sure would rather do it diplomatically. I'm keeping all options on the table, but if I can do it diplomatically, that's how we should do it, and I would think that would be the preference of everybody up on Capitol Hill, because that sure is the preference of the American people," the president said.

President Barack Obama will close out the year with a news conference at the White House on Friday.

He is set to take questions at 2 p.m. ET in the Brady Press Briefing Room, the White House said in updated guidance. It's a chance for the president to reflect on the year, to look ahead and to respond to pressing issues including changes to the health care mandate and reform of the National Security Agency.

Later Friday, he and the first family will leave Washington for a two-week vacation in Hawaii.

Reynolds Allen Wintersmith Jr. was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted in Illinois federal court in 1994 of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and distribute cocaine and cocaine base and possession with intent to distribute crack. He was 19 at the time of his arrest and 17 at the time he got involved running drugs for the Gangster Disciples gang. He is 39 today and has spent the past 19 years in prison.

A spokeswoman for Patrick confirmed that the 57-year-old Massachusetts governor and Wintersmith are cousins but denied any invovement in the drive to get the federal prisoner a rare commutation — one of only nine Obama has granted as president.

"The Governor has no recollection of meeting Mr. Wintersmith (they are quite far apart in age), and believes that if they did meet, it would have been when Mr. Wintersmith was a small boy. The Governor was not involved in any application for a commutation of Mr. Wintersmith’s sentence, and only learned of the commutation through today’s media reports," said the Patrick aide, who asked not to be named.

Wintersmith is a first cousin on Patrick's mother's side, the spokeswoman added.

Patrick's 2011 book, "A Reason to Believe: Lessons from an Improbable Life," discusses his upbringing on the South Side of Chicago, an uncle's addiction to heroin and the involvement of others in the neighborhood with drugs and gangs.

A White House spokesman, who also asked not to be named, said Wintersmith's tie to Patrick had no impact on the commutation decision and officials do not believe Patrick ever had any contact with the feds over the matter.

Wintersmith's case went to the Supreme Court in 1996, on a challenge to how his sentence and those of his co-defendants were arrived at based on distribution of both powdered and crack cocaine. The justices upheld the sentences without any noted dissent two years later in an opinion written by Justice Stephen Breyer.

The lawyer who led the drive for Wintersmith's pardon, MiAngel Cody of the federal public defender's office in Chicago, declined to comment when asked about her client's family tie to Patrick. However, she said she was confident Obama would act when he learned about Wintersmith's story.

"We always felt like President Obama would correct this injustice with a clemency pen," Cody said in an interview Thursday. "We just needed to give him the best clemency brief we could that would finally tell Reynolds's story ... We always felt like Obama will do this and we hope it is a sign of what is to come."

Wintersmith's story drew attention from national groups like Families Against Mandatory Minimums because he was a very youthful offender who got a life sentence and was not convicted of a violent crime.

"His crime began and ended when he was a teenager," said Cody. "It was his first offense. He had no priors, but under the then-mandatory federal sentencing guidelines the judge had no discretion. He could only impose a life sentence."

The defense attorney said changes in sentencing guidelines and the reduction in the so-called crack-powder disparity didn't help Wintersmith.

"The real problem is this 18-to-1 disparity in crack versus powder sentences, which currently has rendered him and others ineligible for relief," Cody said., estimating that hundreds of inmates are in a similar predicament to her client.

"Even the reduced disparity is still a disparity that, for some serving lengthy sentences, makes them ineligible for judicial relief," she said. "This certainly illustrates what we hope is a crack in the dam."

Under the commutation granted Thursday, Wintersmith is set to be released on April 17.

President Barack Obama would veto an Iran sanctions bill with Democratic co-sponsors, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday.

“We don’t think this action is necessary, we don’t think it will be enacted. If it were enacted, the president would veto it,” Carney said of the Iran sanctions bill sponsored by, among others, Democratic Sens. Chuck Schumer and Robert Menendez.

Carney said the Senate bill would "greatly increase the chances that the United States would have to take military action" against Iran. He said it would also be bad for attempts at negotiating with Iran and defy the will of the nation and the Congress.

“Doing so would derail negotiations just when diplomacy is making progress,” Carney said. “It would potentially divide the international community and obviously would suggest bad faith on the part of the United States.”

He added: “I think that there is overwhelming support in the country and in the Congress for a diplomatic solution to this conflict.”

Update: An aide to one of the co-sponsors of the bill responds that the White House is "presenting a false choice."

"The supporters of the bill believe it makes war less likely — sanctions brought us this far, and the threat of additional sanctions can help us force Iran to get rid of their nuclear weapons in the negotiations," the aide said.

Jay Carney emphasized that President Barack Obama wasn't trying to send a message about Russia's anti-gay laws when he named an Olympic delegation with two lesbians and, for the first time since 1988, no president, vice president or first lady.

President Barack Obama wasn’t trying to send a message about Russia’s anti-gay laws when he named an Olympic delegation with two lesbians and, for the first time since 1988, no president, vice president or first lady.

“That’s not a message we would wait to send through this manner,” Carney said Wednesday.

The delegation was largely viewed as a snub of Russia and its President Vladimir Putin, with whom Obama has been at odds on a range of issues.

Carney said a half-dozen times that the delegation, headed by former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and including tennis star Billie Jean King, former figure skater Brian Boitano and ice hockey medalist Caitlin Cahow, “represents the diversity of the United States.”

“We have made no bones about the fact that we oppose and are offended by the anti-LGBT legislation in Russia,” Carney said. “We have not pulled any punches.”

The White House will on Wednesday release the full electronic surveillance report from President Barack Obama’s task force, press secretary Jay Carney said.

The White House had said it would release the report, which carries 46 recommendations for Obama in response to revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden in January, after Obama decided which recommendations to follow.

Obama received the report Dec. 13.

“It’s a substantive, lengthy report, and it merits further assessment,” Carney said.

Obama met Wednesday morning with the surveillance task force, known formally as the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies.

“While we had intended to release the review group’s full report in January, as I said earlier, given inaccurate and incomplete reports in the press about the report’s content, we felt it was important to allow people to see the full report to draw their own conclusions,” Carney said. “For that reason, we will be doing that this afternoon.”

Valerie Jarrett says she has "very specific responsibilities" in the Obama White House and focuses on them, rather than on an all-encompassing portfolio.

"I'm not the shadow chief of staff," she said, responding to the use of the term by POLITICO's Ben White at a Morning Money breakfast. She mentioned her roles in outreach to women and girls, and to the business community and local government officials.

Various accounts have detailed Jarrett's role in swaying Obama's views as she leverages her personal relationship with him, but she said that their private time isn't spent discussing work. "We do compartmentalize," she said.

Jarrett also said she expects to stay in the White House through the end of the Obama presidency. "I have the best job that I have ever had and will ever have," she said. "I serve at the pleasure of the president ... I'll be there as long as he'll have me."

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President Barack Obama won't fundraise for his presidential library while in office, White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said Wednesday, as she downplayed a recent report that planning for the library is well under way.

"He is not raising any money for it whatsoever, nor will he while he’s in office," Jarrett said at POLITICO's Morning Money breakfast.

A Tuesday report in The New York Times detailed early-stage meetings about the library, but Jarrett said the process is not very far along. It's "absolutely in the embryonic stages," she said.

Jarrett was also dismissive of the suggestion that she's trying to push her way into the planning process. "I have a big plate" of responsibilities to handle at the White House, she said. "You can't believe everything you read, even if it's in the New York Times."

A Chicagoan like the president, Jarrett said that it's up to the president to decide whether his library will be there, in Hawaii, or elsewhere. "Who knows where it's going to be," she said.

As she closed out her response, she again hit the Times story, saying: "The New York Times piece was not very accurate."

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There's no "disconnect" between the White House and the tech community, Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett said Wednesday, responding to complaints from some companies that the president was too focused on HealthCare.gov in a recent meeting,

"Ninety-nine percent" of President Obama's time in the room for Tuesday's meeting with tech executives including Apple CEO Tim Cook and Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was spent discussing the companies' concerns about the National Security Agency's surveillance programs, Jarrett said at POLITICO's Morning Money breakfast.

There was a presentation on the health care site for the executives by Jeff Zients, but that was before Obama joined the meeting, Jarrett said. Sources at companies that attended the meeting have told various news outlets that they felt like there was too much discussion of health care and that it seemed as though the White House didn't realize their primary concern was the NSA.

But, Jarrett said, there was no confusion. "I don't think there was a disconnect at all," she said.